100 years ago

MRS HG Tunstill acknowledged with grateful thanks gifts for the 10th West Riding Regiment. They included 36 pairs of socks from Long Preston, 12 pairs of socks from Aysgarth, and 150 handerchiefs. It had been a year since the battalion had gone to France.

Five boys from Barnoldswick, aged between eight and 11 years, were charged with stealing a double barrelled shotgun, a quantity of eggs, three perambulators, a screwdriver, a lamp glass and a door key from a coal dealer's premises in Barnoldswick.

A 19-year-old driver pleaded not guilty to having left a car in a street in Glusburn without having taken precautions against it being started. Two officers had come across the taxi which was unattended, with the engine running and with a drunken soldier on the driver's seat.

50 years ago

ONE of the most novel ways of raising money was accomplished at Kildwick. Members of St Andrew's Church had a 20 mile hike and raised £200 for church funds. About 29 people took part and walked from Kildwick to Skipton and then on to Embsay, Barden, Bolton Abbey, Chelker, Silsden Moor, and back to Kildwick.

Doreen Thorpe, from Kettlewell, sold her famous Bulldog bitch, Champion Tuffnuts First Lady, to an American millionaire who lived in California. The price was not disclosed, but was believed to be substantial.

The weather made Cowling's annual feast gala and procession one of the best for years. Considerable thought had been given to the procession which assembled on Middleton Bottom.

25 years ago

SCHOOLS could no longer assume they had a divine right to customers, said the headmaster of Malsis School, Glusburn. Addressing pupils, parents and friends at the annual speech say, John Clark reported that Malsis had a record number of 196 pupils and claimed it was the school's policy of allowing parents to see Malsis "warts and all" that had kept its buildings full of boarders while others struggled for existence.

The bells at St Mary's Church were rededicated. One of the bells had been recarved by the same firm that had carried out a similar task for the church in 1859 and another had to be retuned and rehung with internal clappers. A third bell was replaced and the new one had the inscription: "Bell notes alone ring praise on their own" and the name of Carleton's bell ringer for 30 years, John McAdam.

Skipton MP David Curry welcomed the announcement that four local road schemes costing more than £5.5 million had been added to the building programme. The package was unveiled by Secretary of State for Transport Malcolm Ridkind and included road improvements at Draughton, Harden Bridge, Gargrave and Skipton. "Craven has got a big bite of the cherry," said Mr Curry.

10 years ago

A MAN who spent his childhood in Skipton's former orphanage, Burnside House, was helping developers to bring the property back to life as a luxurious complex for retired people. It was by chance that Cawder Construction bosses, Tony Coupe and Geoffrey Lloyd-Bennett, learned that fellow Round Table member and builder John Blades grew up at the house. Mr Blades, from Barnoldswick, lived at the Carleton Road orphanage from the age of three to 15.

It was nerve-racking enough making speeches in front of relatives and friends, but a Sutton man found himself faced to say a few words in front of the Royal Family. Malcolm Linford was shocked when he received his royal summons to Buckingham Palace, where he was presented with a certificate of thanks for his 20 years' dedication to the Duke of Edinburgh Award. His surprise soon turned to panic when he discovered he would be expected to say a few words about his experiences. His wife, Anne Rawlinson, received her own invitation for her involvement with the scheme.

After more than a century of exclusion, the fairer sex was on the brink of being allowed into an exclusively male working men's club in Barnoldswick. Union WMC was one of only a handful of its kind in the country which had a blanket ban on women membership. But with a ladies' darts team about to use the club's facilities and difficult days for the hospitality industry, times could be changing for the venue, commonly known as the Pigeon Club.